The Killing Ground

March 31, 2008
Higgins pits series hero ex-IRA enforcer Sean Dillon, now British Intelligence's go-to guy on antiterrorism, against terrorists Hussein Rashid, better known as the Hammer of God. The Hammer's plan is to enter England, kill Dillon's boss and kidnap a 13-year-old who has been promised to him as a future bride. This is a familiar but engrossing cat-and-mouse game involving a vast assortment of British, Irish, American, Russian and Muslim players on both sides of the board. Christopher Lang's crisp rendition aids tremendously in following Higgins's constant shifts from the Hammer's progress to Dillon's attempts to halt it. Lang also possesses a talent for accents. It's fun listening to him handle the group chats, with lightning shifts from lilting brogue to clipped old Etonian, guttural grunts to staccato Middle Eastern twang. One can't ask for any more than that. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 5, 2007).

November 5, 2007
After almost two score books, many of them bestsellers, Higgins (Without Mercy
) knows how to fire up a thriller. In the first half-dozen pages, he establishes his London locale; reintroduces recurring lead Sean Dillon, the colorful former IRA man turned British intelligence antiterrorism op; has Sean shoot a smalltime hood's ear off; and intimates there are much bigger fish to fry beyond the hood's Russian employer. The real villain is a Muslim extremist of the al-Qaeda variety: Hussein Rashid, aka the Hammer of God, and one of the most successful assassins alive, with 27 certified kills of American and British soldiers and Iraqi politicians. Hussein has his sights set on Charles Ferguson, head of British intelligence. It's a longstanding grudge, complicated by the recent kidnapping of Hussein's promised bride, his 13-year-old cousin Sara, who was earlier kidnapped by Hussein himself. The proceedings are complicated; it helps if the reader is a veteran of this long-running series. But it's all pure Higgins: almost every shot hits square between the eyes, and all the characters are hard lads indeed.

December 15, 2007
In the latest Sean Dillon thriller, starring the globe-trotting intelligence officer, a seemingly routine passport check turns out to be anything but, and soon Dillon is going head-to-head with a terrorist known as the Hammer of God (who has kidnapped a 13-year-old girl as his intended bride). The pace is fast; the characters well developed, at least in the context of a plot-driven thriller; and the story timely, as always from veteran Higgins. But readers may detect a small hint of exhaustion, in both Dillon and Higgins, both of whom have been around the block more than a few times. The plot seems a bit forced, as if its getting harder and harder to get Dillon from point A to point B, begging the question of whether, after so many novels on the subject, the author has anything meaningful left to say about international terrorism. There is nothing wrong with the novel, but there is nothing especially right about it, eitherjust another efficiently written thriller from a name-brand author whose fan base, though diminishing, is still sizable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)